Help me with Paypal

So this is the only time I’ll ask. One donation, one time. And then we’re done.

Help is necessary

I enjoy writing for you. However, the truly unbelievable amount of traffic is costing me a fortune. In two years, this cost won’t be a burden. Because I’ll be dead!

No. Just kidding.

In fact I’m doing very well physically, having started a swimming program that is reducing the pain of my arthritis and allowing me to lose weight.

The problem is that right now, the cost of the Website is a massive drain on my resources. As a result I must ask for donations. One time.

Help will make a huge difference

Instead of going on in this vein, here’s what I wrote after my mother died.

Mom was a party girl!

In the last two years of her life, Mom told me a lot about herself. She didn’t tell me anything unseemly, inappropriate, or sordid. All she did was describe in broad strokes her life as a bachelorette teacher in Venezuela in 1957 and 1958. After she died I found the photos to prove it.

Here is a great one.

Mom is marked with the white arrow. She’s standing there in hypnotized conversation with an eye-rolling ogre. In the foreground Gene Hackman recoils in horror at a woman’s furry tail. In the background on the left, it’s an original insufferable hipster. Look at his beard and culottes. On the right, a woman is about to deliver a roundhouse slap to a lecher on the sofa.

Mom listened to this song at her parties.

Imagine that coming on at a party. Instantly the room would be empty except for the ghouls.

Here’s my second-favorite photo of Mom from this period.

Wading in Lake Maracaibo. Mom invented the duck-lip pout, you know. She was a Mexican-American, a pianist, a brilliant ping-pong player, a multi-media artist, and a searcher. After 9/11, she bought and read the Koran from cover to cover. She didn’t want anyone to tell her what to think. Thus she studied Islam for three years.

The party ended, as they all do.

Finally, my favorite photo.

She looks just like Suzanne Vega, a terrific singer. Mom had the same mystery and enigma as Suzanne Vega. I like the blurriness of the photo.

Here is Vega’s best work.

In a word, it’s a song about my mother’s life. And mine.

And if I tell the truth, then I will have to tell you this
Though I grieve and I believe I feel it trulyBut I knew the ship was empty by the time it hit the rocks‘Cause we could not hold on when fate became unruly

I feel as though I’ve adopted the entire Middle East as my surrogate family.

After this rough period, you’re all going to have such amazing lives. Your courage is my greatest inspiration.